Ethan Allen Monument: Committee Report, 1858

Ethan Allen Monument: Committee Report, 1858

Report of the Committee
under the Act Provident for the Erection of a Monument
over the Grave of Ethan Allen

Printed by Order of the Senate.
Montpelier:
E. P. Walton, Printer
1858.

REPORT.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY, RYLAND FLETCHER, Governor of Vermont:

The undersigned Committee, appointed under the act of the Legislature of this
State, entitled "an act providing for the erection of a monument over the
grave of Ethan Allen," approved 14th November, 1855, are happy in reporting
the completion of said monument, agreeably to a plan and inscriptions
submitted to and approved by your predecessor, and consisting of a Tuscan
column of granite, forty-two feet in height and four and a half feet in
diameter at its base, with a pedestal six feet square, in which are inserted
four plates of white marble, having the following inscriptions, to wit:

[west side]
Vermont
to
Ethan Allen
Born
in Litchfield Ct 10th Jan AD 1737 o.s.
Died
in Burlington Vt 12th Feb AD 1789
and buried near the site of this monument

[south side]
The
LEADER OF THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS
in the surprise and capture of Ticonderoga
which he demanded "in the name of the Great
Jehovah and the Continental Congress

[east side]
Taken
Prisoner in a daring attack on Montreal
and transported to England
he disarmed the purpose of his enemy
by the respect which he inspired
for the REBELLION AND THE REBEL.

[north side]
Wielding
the Pen as well as the Sword, he was the
sagacious and intrepid DEFENDER
of the New Hampshire Grants, and
Master Spirit
in the arduous struggle which resulted in the
Sovereignty and Independence
of this State.

The whole structure stands upon a solid foundation of stone work, five feet
deep and ten feet square, and thus founded, and thus constructed of solid
granite blocks from our native hills, it bids fair to stand, an unfaltering
witness of the high appreciation of the State for one of her foremost and
earliest patriots, through a long session of centuries to come.

In the body of the act above referred to, it is directed that the monument be
erected "at the burial place of Ethan Allen, in Burlington." Failing to
discover his remains beneath the table which had, for years, marked the
supposed spot of his burial, and which had been carried away piecemeal by
patriotic pilgrims to his shrine, the public mind became much excited, and
the most absurd rumors and statements were published, and gained extensive
credence, as to his burial in various other towns; and the abstraction of
his remains by pious relatives or rapacious speculators. The Committee have
never doubted as to the place of his burial; and by an unbroken tradition,
the uniform understanding of relatives, confirmed by the testimony of
undoubted witnesses who were present at his funeral, (which funeral was of a
public and formal character,) it is decisively settled that that place is
where the monument is erected, in what is called "Green Mount Cemetery." The
failure to find the remains beneath the tablet, in the minds of the
Committee, sufficiently accounted for by the fact that, some twenty years
since, the dead of the Allen family were arranged in a square enclosed by
stone posts and chains, by Heman Allen, the nephew of Ethan Allen; and this
tablet, then lying upon a dilapidated wall of brick work, was reconstructed
with cut stone work, and it is presumed that, as a matter of convenience in
giving a regular form to the enclosure, was removed some few feet from its
original position, and the Committee have no doubt that by excavation in the
immediate vicinity of the monument the remains might be found; but as doubts
would probably be raised as to their identity, as it was not necessary to
the faithful discharge of the duty of the Committee, and would accomplish no
essential good, they instituted no examination.

The contract for the erection of this monument was made with Mr. J. P.
Harrington, of South Barre, on the 15th day of

October, 1856. By the terms of it, he was to accomplish the work, as
before described, by the 1st day of October, 1857, for the sum of two thousand
dollars, being the whole amount of the appropriation. The Committee regret the
delay in the execution ofthe work, but in every other respect they have reason
to be satisfied with the contractor, who has honorably fulfilled, and in some
respects more than fulfilled, the terms of the contract, and that too, as the
Committee apprehend, without the hope or realization of a full compensation. The
work, to say nothing of the design, is, we think, highly creditable to the
contractor, and to the State.

In the process of erecting the monument, a
vacancy occurring beneath the cap stone of the pedestal, the Committee
availed themselves of the opportunity thereby afforded by placing therein a
stone pot securely sealed, containing the following among other articles:
the newspapers of the town and of the various cities of the Union; Allen's
Narrative of his Captivity; Appleton's Railway Guide and Maps; the Vermont
Register; sundry American coins, and various seeds. A more formal deposit is
contemplated beneath the statue, which it is hoped may surmount the column.

To carry out the suggestion heretofore made in our report, and the wishes of
sundry patriotic citizens, the Committee procured the passage of an act, at
the last session of the Legislature, authorizing the erection, by private
donations, of a collossal statue of the Hero on the top of the column
erected by the State; and thereupon issued circulars to the citizens of
Vermont, at home and abroad, asking a donation of one dollar each. The
Committee have been disappointed in the response to the applications, and
have received in all only some five hundred dollars. Nevertheless, a young
and patriotic artist, a native of this State, Mr. Larkin G. Mead, Jr., of
Brattleboro', has volunteered to

make a model of the statue in plaster, which the Committee have
approved, and which they think highly creditable to the artist, and which,
completed in marble, will constitute, with the column, not only a highly fitting
monument, but a noble work of art. Through the generosity and patriotism of a
citizen of this State, a block of marble suitable for the statue has, as the
Committee understand, been proffered to Mr. Mead, and the Committee hope that,
through a like commendable spirit to be evinced by others, a work so honorable
to the people of Vermont may be accomplished.